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New Scientist Live

The truth about Vienna

ANYBODY want to save the ozone layer? That was the question New Scientist asked in 1984 when it looked less than likely that nations could work together to save a part of the global commons. But, against the odds, the Vienna Convention to Protect the Ozone Layer started the ball rolling just a year later.

By 1987, we had an agreement with teeth – the Montreal Protocol which set limits on the release of ozone-destroying chemicals. The protocol has been revised many times, most recently last week in Vienna, and it has worked. Only 360 000 tonnes of CFCs, the chemical that does most damage to the ozone layer, were released this year compared with 1 million tonnes in 1985.

The protocol has set the pattern for other agreements in the making. Nations are arguing over climate and biodiversity, but the principle that they should arrive at common action to protect common resources is unquestioned. For that alone we should celebrate Vienna’s 10th birthday (see This Week).

But have we really saved the ozone layer? If everyone sticks to the agreements negotiated so far, the concentration of ozone in the stratosphere will return to preindustrial levels in half a century. But there are many hazards along the way.

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Industry is once more up to its old tricks of trying to discredit the dangers, or even the reality, of ozone depletion. This time it is not companies that manufacture CFCs but those that make methyl bromide, a widely-used pesticide that also destroys ozone.

But even this is likely to be but a sideshow. The real dangers lurk in the growing confrontation between the rich and the poor over who will pay for improved technology. In Vienna last week, amendments to the Montreal Protocol were forged enabling both developed and developing nations to make the transition to ozone-friendly chemicals, each at their own speed. CFCs will be replaced by less harmful HCFCs and these in turn will be phased out in the next century.

But these paper plans will come to nothing if the rich countries do not provide the promised funds to help the developing nations switch to safer refrigerants (see “Ozone’s future is up in the air”). Poor nations are certain to manufacture vast numbers of fridges because they need them to store food and keep vaccines and medicines safe in hot climates. If they cannot build them using new technology, they will manufacture more CFCs and go on using HCFCs longer than planned.

The battle to save the ozone layer is not just an environmental issue, but now involves the complex politics of development. So, real success here as in so many issues facing Earth will rest on doing justice as well as doing science. We cannot have one without the others. (see Illustration)